


Eighty Years and Counting

by Emachinescat



Category: Doctor Who, Hardy Boys - Franklin W. Dixon
Genre: Crossover, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-07
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2018-01-13 15:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1232416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emachinescat/pseuds/Emachinescat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor, Amy, and Rory find themselves in a place called Bayport where time has stopped but crime hasn't, and where the residents look to two teenagers for answers every time something goes wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1931

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own either, this is just for entertainment purposes. 
> 
> I thought this might be amusing. This demanded to be written, so of course I had to forfeit my soul to the plot bunnies until I got it out here. :) Ever wonder why Frank and Joe Hardy have been teenagers for over eighty years, solved hundreds of mysteries, and yet never grow a year older? The Doctor has, and now, he's about to do some investigating of his own… the TARDIS is coming to Bayport, yo! ;)
> 
> Enjoy. :)

"Here we are!" the Doctor declared, slinging open the Tardis's doors with a flourish and taking a bounding step into the bright noon sunlight. "Bayport, Massachusetts, United States, North America,  _Earth,_ 1931! And it's a Tuesday; I quite like Tuesdays,  _so_ much better than Sundays!"

Amy Pond and her fiancé, Rory Williams followed their quirky Time Lord friend out of the blue police box and glanced around curiously. The neighborhood they were in looked like your typical American apple-pie town, exactly what you'd expect to see in the suburbs. The houses mid-sized, mostly white, with an occasional vintage car parked in a flower-lined driveway. It was midday and seemed to be winter, seeing as the lack of children playing out in neatly manicured lawns and the frosty bite to the air. It was calm and peaceful. Quaint.

The kind of life that Rory had always dreamed of – albeit in his own time – and that the Doctor found positively  _boring._  Which led to the question of –

"Why are we here, Doctor?" Amy asked bluntly as they followed the Doctor as he strutted down "Elm Street" like he owned the place, long fingers curled instinctively around his sonic screwdriver, eyes wide and curious as he looked around him. He seemed to be searching for something.

The Doctor turned around, still moving, now walking backwards as he answered. "What? A man can't just decide to take a nice stroll through the American 1930s? The suburbs… ah! Now there's the place to be. You've got… well, there's…" He looked around, trying to find some perk of being in a town that, at the moment, looked to him even more boring than  _Leadsworth_ , and  _that_  was saying something. He finally sighed in defeat and conceded,"Alright, Pond, you're right, it's all apple pie and sweet tea and lemonade here. It's  _too_  perfect, to predictable, and far, far too boring."

"So why are we here then?" Rory called, hurrying to catch up to his friends.

The Doctor finally stopped walking right as Rory was about to catch up. The two stood, nearly nose to nose, the Doctor studying Rory as if he'd only just seen him. "Come on, Rory, think about it. America. 1930s. What's going on in the early 1930s… or rather, what  _isn't_  going on?"

Rory closed his eyes briefly. "Um, uh… the Great Depression?" he answered, then when the Doctor didn't contradict him, he became more confident. "The Great Depression!"

The Doctor stared at him for a few more seconds before abruptly turning on his heel, clicking his sonic screwdriver as he did so. "Exactly!" he crowed as his screwdriver chirped, renting the peaceful quiet of the town. "The Great Depression, one of the most terrible times in America's history. Thousands of people lost their jobs due to stock market crashes, people lost their homes, their livelihoods, and some…" his voice grew grave, "…some couldn't take it. Some…"

"Took their own lives," Amy finished solemnly. "I remember this from school, but I still don't see what that has to do with why we're here. This is a good, safe place by the looks of it. No poverty. What's wrong?"

The Doctor was now scanning the area with his screwdriver, increasing his pace as the readings got stronger. "The Great Depression affected all of America in some way. No one was 'safe' from it. So why does this place look like it's straight out of the 1920s? We're at the heart of the Depression, and there are no traces of it. It's like something's protecting it…"

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Rory reasoned.

"Maybe," the Doctor conceded, having stopped at a big, white house sitting at the corner of High and Elm Street. Neither of his companions could tell any difference about the readings of the sonic screwdriver, but the Doctor seemed to believe that this was where it had been leading them. "But, good or not, it doesn't make sense.  _Why_  is this tiny little town in Massachusetts spared from the hardship of the rest of the country? Just a state away, thousands of people are homeless and living in shantytowns in Central Park, starving to death…" His face was grave. "I was there, you know. Central Park, Hooverville. Stopped some Daleks, got electrocuted. Same old stuff."

The shadow over his young-looking face melted away and he grinned. "Now, come along, Ponds; let's find out what's keeping little ole Bayport from the big bad Depression."

* * *

Laura Hardy was making an apple pie, puttering around the kitchen and humming, when there was a knock on the door. Brow furrowing slightly in confusion, the blonde, petite woman wondered who would be calling at this time of day. Hoping that her husband or sons hadn't gotten involved in something dangerous, she wiped her flour-covered hands on her apron and walked to the front door. The sight that greeted her on the other side of the threshold was certainly unexpected and very, very odd.

"Hullo!" said the man in the middle, grinning brightly, his hazel eyes darting around his surroundings, taking in everything. To most people, it would look as if he were just glancing around aimlessly, but Laura had seen the same intelligent gleam in his eyes that often graced Fenton's or the boys'. He was observing while trying to look like he was  _not_  observing, and that might have worked if Laura's husband hadn't been on the police force and then turned private investigator with their two sons following closely in his footsteps. Still, the young man didn't seem to have ill intent, he just looked curious and quite happy.

He had brown hair that was longer than was the style, the fringe of his bangs just brushing his eyebrows. Intelligent green eyes absorbed all the details around him and he had a strong nose and chin. He was a handsome man, probably in his twenties, so a few years older than her boys, and he wore a sharp tweed jacket, slacks, and a bright red bowtie.

He was flanked by a man and a woman. The girl was pretty, with the reddest hair Laura had ever come across, freckles, and a round face lit up by bright green eyes and full, smiling lips. She wore a skirt that was  _much_  too short and Laura resisted the almost motherly urge to tell her to put some clothes on or she'd freeze in the chilly February air. The man had brown eyes, a rather large nose, and blonde hair. He, too, looked nice enough and was wearing clothes that were a bit more reasonable for this weather.

The man in the middle smiled even wider as she gave him a not-exactly-suspicious-but-I-live-with-detectives-so-I'm-going-to-keep-my-eye-on-you look and offered a quick, "Hello?" as a reply.

" _Lovely_  place," the man said. "Lots of… flowers and walls and things. Very… house-y." His eyes were still darting around and by the distracted tone of his voice and the way he kept glancing past her into the entrance way, she realized that he was itching to take a look inside, for whatever reason. She also observed that he spoke with a British accent, so he wasn't from around here.

"Who are you?" Laura asked, not inviting him inside just yet and trying to figure out just what he wanted.

"I'm the Doctor!" the young man replied, grinning madly and straightening his bowtie.

"Doctor who, exactly?" Laura asked, quirking an eyebrow in the skeptical way perfected by only the most skilled mothers.

"The Doctor" shifted his weight like he was full of unreleased energy, put his gangly hands in his pockets, and said, "Just the Doctor."

Laura's other eyebrow joined the first as she gave him an incredulous look. "Your name… is 'the Doctor'?"

Under her mother-ish scrutiny, the Doctor almost squirmed, much to the obvious amusement of his companions. She finally decided to go with it. Having a houseful of detectives had taught her that often one didn't want to or simply couldn't go by their true name, although if she was hiding from someone or trying to blend in, she would choose something a little more inconspicuous, like  _John Smith_ , but to each their own, she supposed.

"I'm Amy," the red-head offered and her accent was different as well, from both Laura's and the Doctor's. "And that's Rory."

Laura offered a quick hello before deciding that she might as well find out why they were here. She assumed that it was to see her husband, who already had a client at the moment and was off in another town working a case. "Are you here to see Fenton?" she asked bluntly.

The man nodded. "Fenton. Yes, of course, is he here? I can just pop in and say hello…"

Laura found she didn't quite believe him.

"Actually, he's on a case at the moment. Out of town. You'll have to come back some other time. _Or,_ " she added, "you could tell me why you're  _really_  here and I can see if there's anything I or my sons can do to help you. They're amateur detectives," she supplied proudly.

The Doctor cocked his head and regarded Laura for a long time before asking, "What's your name?"

"Laura," the woman replied, realizing that she'd never introduced herself. "Laura Hardy."

"Hardy, Hardy, Hardy…" the Doctor was tapping the side of his hand with one long finger, pacing as much as he could on the doorstep, and seemed to be wracking his brain. "Why does that name sound so familiar?"

If he didn't even know who they were, why was it that they were here? Laura regarded the man with a bit more suspicion this time and said, "Perhaps you've heard of my husband, Fenton? He's pretty well-known around here."

"Fenton Hardy, Fenton Hardy, Fenton… Think-think-think-think!" he ordered himself. He rounded on his friends. "Amy, Rory –  _Hardy_ : does it ring any bells?"

Amy shrugged as Laura looked on in confusion. "No," she said. "Should it?"

The Doctor turned to Rory. "Mr. Pond?" he prompted.

"Sorry, no idea."

Finally the Doctor's head snapped up and he whisked some identification out and showed it to Laura, who started at what she saw. Apparently he was Chief Collig's newest officer, having started the force yesterday. "Sorry, I just had to make sure you knew who you were," he informed her with a straight face and Laura had no idea if he was serious or not. "Chief sent me here to check out a possible threat in your house immediately. You're clearly not an imposter, so you can go… do something while we check things out."

Without another word, he quickly sidestepped past the confused woman, darted through the house as if he knew where he was going, and retreated into the basement. After a moment of silence, the man named Rory stammered, "S-sorry. He… does that. A lot."

Awkward silence reigned. Then there was a loud  _"Ah-ha!"_  from below, and the Doctor was darting back to the first floor, this time with a look of excitement on his face. "Oooh, yes!" he practically crowed. "It all makes sense now! I knew something wasn't right about the time; the fact that no one here's been affected by the Great Depression was only the tip of the iceburg!"

Laura gave him an odd look. "We've been lucky."

"No, you haven't, you've just been  _hidden!_  Oh, very clever; very clever! Nearly as clever as one of my ideas – almost. It's a rift!" he revealed, waving his gangly arms in a flourish. "A rift in time!"

"Like a crack?" Amy was instantly wary.

"Yes. Well, no. Weeell, sort of. Actually, it's nothing like a crack, but if it makes you feel better, then think of it as a crack."

Amy glared. "It doesn't."

Laura cleared her throat, totally lost by this point, and the Doctor turned his attention back to her, startled. "Sorry," he said. "We'll just be going now."

"What's a rift?" Laura demanded. "Is it safe?"

"Safe?" the Doctor repeated, glancing at her seriously. "Yes, it's fine. Come on, Ponds, say your goodbyes, because we've got some investigating of our own to do!"


	2. 1991

"What the heck is that?" Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Joe Hardy raised his eyebrows and traded a confused look with his year-older brother, eighteen-year-old Frank Hardy. "I  _know_  this wasn't here when we left two weeks ago!"

The brothers had been off school for winter break and had been invited to on a ten-day cruise with Joe's girlfriend, Vanessa's family. Frank's girlfriend, Callie, had been invited, too. The first three days had been relaxing and fun, but soon rooms were being robbed and the activity director's food had been poisoned, and the detective brothers had jumped headfirst into another mystery. They'd stopped the jealous ex-wife of the cruise ship's captain – the captain, by the way, had been having an affair with Lindsey, the much-too-tan activity director – and had also caught the major jewel thief that had been stealing from cruise ships for over two months, using drama like the affair scandal and poisoned tacos to cover his work.

By the time Frank and Joe had gotten patched up (the jewel thief was pretty violent, but the real trouble came from the long, red claws at the end of Mrs. Jealous Ex-Wife's fingers), given their statement to the Coast Guard, talked to the police at the nearest port, and had been hounded by the press for their remarkable achievements, most of the cruise was already over. They didn't mind, really, though, because this was their territory – the brothers, though still teenagers, were highly skilled amateur detectives and solved cases like this on a near weekly basis. They'd lost count of how many mysteries they'd solved since they'd started following in their Private Investigator father's footsteps about a year ago. Trouble seemed to crop up wherever they went, but they were well versed at dealing with it.

Frank shook his head, staring incredulously at the big blue box sitting on the street corner a block away from their home. "It's a police box," he informed his younger brother, who snorted, staring up at the words at the top of the box: POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX.

"A police box, gee, thanks, Frank, never would've figured that one out! What the heck  _is_  a police box, though? Is it kinda like a drive-thru for crime-fighters? Or is it like one of those clown cars, where you can fit a bunch of police officers inside, and right when you need them – BAM! – out jump Chief Collig and the rest of the guys, ready to take'em in. Or maybe a portable crime lab. Dude… we  _so_  have to get us one of these!"

Frank rolled his eyes and waited for his brother to finish theorizing. When he was done, Frank informed him, "Actually, these were commonplace in London in… mmm… the nineteen-fifties. They'd be on just about every street corner. They were kind of like pay phones, where if you were in trouble, you could duck inside and call the cops. Or, if a cop caught someone, he could lock them in the box until reinforcements arrived. I don't think I've ever heard of these in the U.S., though, and certainly not in the twentieth century."

Joe scratched his head. "So that just leaves two questions."

"Two?"

"Yeah." Joe grinned craftily. "What is it doing here? And… where the heck do you keep all this random knowledge, anyway? I mean, you're like a useless info hoarder. Where do you learn about obscure British  _police boxes_?"

Frank sniffed, offended. "If you  _must_  know, I did my Freshman research paper on discontinued foreign police practices, Joe."

"Right. Of course you did." Joe walked toward the box, slowly circling it. "It's not for decoration," he decided, "because it looks about as out of place in Bayport as Chet looks at a salad bar." Chet was one of their best friends, whose appetite none, not even Joe, had been able to surpass.

"Yeah, and it's been here for a while, judging by the dust buildup around the base," Frank noted, his mind already whirring into detective mode.

"But no one's tried to move it," Joe pointed out, his sleuthing instincts on red-alert. "There's no footprints, no disturbance to suggest that anyone's come near it in weeks. So what's it doing here now, and why has no one noticed anything?"

"Good! Very good, boys, great questions, I'd give you a pat on the back if my hands weren't full of… things."

The boys, having heard no one coming behind them, jumped at the sudden, unfamiliar voice, and spun around to face the newcomer, who, judging by his accent, was British. He appeared to be about six or seven years older than the brothers, but was dressed in a tweed jacket and bright red bowtie. His floppy brown hair brushed his eyebrows, his hazel eyes sparkled gleefully, and his long, gangly arms were indeed full of… things.

"Um… who are you?" Frank asked, quirking an eyebrow at this very strange stranger.

"I'm the Doctor, and you're dressed quite out of place for the 1930s, aren't you?" the man pointed out, before hastening over to face the brothers, standing so that he was face-to-face with Frank. "But you're not  _in_  the 1930s anymore, are you? Even though just two hours ago, it was two weeks ago and it was 1931. What year is it now?" He shoved the odd assortment of doodads and whatsits into Joe's arms. He then licked his index finger and held it up as if trying to predict the weather. "Hmmm… smells like late twentieth century, yeah? 1990, 1991? My, how time flies, eh?" The boys stared dumbly at him, completely taken aback by the ridiculous behavior of this man. "Oh, but you don't know, you never even notice, do you?"

Joe glanced down at the junk in his hands and asked, "What's this stuff?" He had about a hundred other questions racing through his mind, but figured that he'd start with something simple.

"Nothing much. Just some things I found that, when put together the right way, will be able to isolate and extrapolate time energy that is feeding through a rift right underneath this town. Shouldn't be too difficult once I've figured out what caused the rift in the first place, and then hopefully I'll be able to do something about it. Or not. It might not even be dangerous, but I've got to check it out."

"You're making no sense," said Frank.

"I'm making perfect sense, you're just not advanced enough to understand me, that's all. Who are you, anyway?"

"Um, I'm Joe Hardy," said Joe. "And that's my brother, Frank."

"Again with the Hardys!" the Doctor exclaimed. "That name is  _so_  familiar…"

"Maybe you've heard of our dad," Frank offered.

"Or of us," Joe chipped in helpfully. "We've done some pretty awesome stuff, too."

"That's what the motherish blonde lady with the eyebrows kept saying," the Doctor mused.

"You've talked to mom?" Joe asked.

"Wait, Mom?" Frank looked confused. "There are lots of motherly blonde ladies around here, Joe."

"Yeah, but none of'em have mastered the art of incredible high-flying eyebrows like she has!" Joe quipped, chuckling as Frank's dark brows began to ascend. "Yeah, you're close, bro, but Mom's got you beat in the eyebrow raising department."

"Sorry, but he's right," the Doctor conceded. "That woman has one  _hell_  of an eyebrow. Well, two of them, but you know what I mean. Now, I'll take my things back," he motioned for Joe to hand them over, "and be on my way. Lots to do, and all that. Though I don't think this is goodbye… I'll see you again soon.  _Well_ , soon in my point of view, for you, it could be days, weeks, maybe even years. Everything's all jumbled up in this town, but don't worry, I'll set it right, just you watch me!"

The impressive flourish of his hands was slightly diminished as several metal springy things fell to the ground. "Bye now!"

He scooped up his gadgets and turned on his heel, snapping his fingers. Frank and Joe watched, dumbfounded, as the doors to the blue box they had been trying to figure out swung inwards to reveal what looked like a big – much too big for the police box – room filled with shiny walls and gadgets. The Doctor ducked inside and the doors closed behind him.

Only after they had shut did the brothers race forward and try to open them, but to no avail. The box was locked and silent, like the Doctor had never been there. Frank stared at the blue doors, his eyes scanning the white instruction notice on the left one. "He pushed," the brown-haired boy commented.

"Sorry, but what?"

"He pushed – the doors swung inwards. But the instructions clearly say to  _pull_  to open," Frank observed. Even he knew that this was a very lame reaction to what they had just witnessed, but it was about the only coherent thought his baffled mind could come up with after what had just occurred.

Joe scoffed. "Technically, he snapped and the doors pushed  _themselves_  in. So if you want to gripe about someone not obeying the rules, talk to the box."

"But it's not possible," Frank said softly, running a hand down the side of the box. "Did you see the inside?"

"Yeah… but, it was a trick of the light, right? I mean, it was  _huge_  in there!" Joe's eyes were wide. "Maybe I was right – maybe it  _is_  a clown car for police officers!"

Frank turned away from the box, his moment of mystification over. "Alright, that's it. Let's go home. We've got to talk to Mom, figure out who this Doctor is and what he's doing here with that… box."

"The blue box?" Joe asked, eyes wide as a strange wheezing noise began to emanate from behind the elder Hardy sibling.

"Yeah," said Frank, preparing to turn and see what the strange sound was. "What other box would I be talking about, Joe?"

"Well… I was just wondering, seeing as… it's kind of…"

"Kind of what?" Frank snapped as the thrumming started to fade away.

"Leaving."

Frank spun, jaw hanging, to see the blue box quickly fading into nothing. Within the next couple of seconds, it had completely disappeared.

Joe found his voice first. "Okay… forget what I was said yesterday about Chet joining a gym…  _this_ is officially the weirdest thing I've ever seen."

"Yep," agreed Frank, and together, not at all sure if what they had just witnessed had actually happened, the brother detectives turned and walked toward their home. It was time to find out what was going on here, because  _something_  was, something very odd, and this Doctor and his blue box seemed to be at the very heart of it.


	3. 2012

The Doctor burst into the TARDIS carrying a load of assorted metal odds and ends. Amy jumped up from where she had been sitting by the console with Rory, her eyes flashing. "Doctor! You've been gone for  _hours_! I swear, if you  _ever_  tell me to stay in the TARDIS 'where it's safe' again, I'll…"

"Oh, you could've come out  _ages_  ago," the Doctor informed the irate red-head. "I just needed a quick pop out of the TARDIS to make sure the time-wave hadn't made anything dangerous for humans. Didn't I tell you? Ah, well, silly old Doctor, eh? I've got too much stuff in my brain; need a bigger one, don't you think?"

Amy huffed. "Doctor, you—"

"So, did you find out anything about this… rift?" Rory interjected, knowing how stubborn both his fiancé and the Doctor could be. "And what's all that stuff, anyway?"

"Oh, this? It's nothing, really. Found it in the local junkyard,  _covered_  in rift energy. With any luck, this'll be enough to keep the TARDIS fueled up so we don't have to go back to _Cardiff_  anytime soon. Also, I quite like this spinny-turny thing. It's cool."

"Since when are  _egg-beaters_ cool?" Amy asked, a ginger eyebrow raised in amusement, the gleam in her eyes saying that she was torn between telling the Doctor off for trying to keep her safely in the TARDIS and then forgetting about her, and laughing at his antics.

"Since when are bowties and fezzes cool?" Rory countered, smirking, and the Doctor didn't even spare a second to look offended.

"Bowties are cool, Rory. But that's not the point. The point is, this place is positively  _crawling_  with rift energy. Not the same kind of energy that's from the rift in Cardiff, though; it's stronger. And a hell of a lot more manipulative, I'd wager. But still… it's fascinating!"

"So what are you gonna do?" Amy asked, any previous annoyance forgotten as she waited to hear the Doctor's grand plan to swoop in and save the day. "Use the Sonic Screwdriver to heal the crack… rift… whatever?"

"No… No, I don't think so," the Doctor said, frowning as if in deep thought. "The rift is powerful, but though it's not exactly  _good_ , it's not  _bad_ , either. It's neutral, and it only affects  _this_  town. I could heal the rift – not with the sonic, though, because the rift is wood-based, long story, but I'm not going to. Not until I talk to those boys again, at least. They can decide. They  _should_  decide. It's affected them the most, after all."

He pushed some buttons and pulled some levers and the TARDIS began to shiver as it started to move.

"What boys?" Amy asked. "The kids you were talking to outside the TARDIS? Rory and I could see you on the screen," she added. "What about them?"

"They're key to all this," the Doctor answered. "But they're not kids, Amy, oh no… not really. But they are. Only… they aren't. Oh… Frank and Joe Hardy," he murmured. "Now I think I know where I remember you from. You clever dog, Stratemayer, you. You were cleverer than even you knew! Ha! Come on, Rory, Amy, let's go find the Hardy Boys!"

* * *

Two and a half months had passed since Frank and Joe's weird encounter with the Doctor. After their strange conversation with the man with the disappearing Police Public Call Box, the brothers had rushed home to talk to their mother about her talk with "the Doctor". Sadly, she hadn't been able to add much to the information they already knew about the man. He'd appeared at the house a couple of weeks ago with a man and a woman. He'd behaved very oddly, then randomly pulled out credentials saying that he was working for Collig and had ran to the basement, returning and babbling something about a rift.

After he'd disappeared, Laura had called the Bayport PD to find that Collig had never hired him. She'd called Fenton – who was on the trail of a huge drug ring and couldn't talk for long – and he'd promised he'd look into it as soon as he could. In the meantime, she was to keep an eye out for the stranger and report him if she saw him. She hadn't. It had been like he'd never even been there.

So Frank and Joe had decided to look up this "Doctor" online. They didn't find much, mainly some crazy conspiracy theories and pictures of a thin, pinstriped suited man with some really great hair (Joe's words as he'd patted his own blonde hair, as if trying to figure out the man's secret) on a girl named Ursula's website.* Since they couldn't find anything that way, they'd contacted the Network, something they rarely did, only to find out that even the secret government agency couldn't access the files on this man. Apparently, they were blocked by something called Torchwood and something else called UNIT. "Now stop calling us," the Gray Man snapped from the other line. "We'll call you if we need you. Not the other way around."

"Hm," said Joe, grinning. "Old Arthur seems to be in a better mood than usual, right, Frank?"

Frank had just sat back and rubbed his chin, deep in thought.

Now, the boys had just about convinced themselves that they had imagined the whole thing. They wanted answers and had searched relentlessly for them, but had found nothing, which was something neither sleuth was accustomed to. Their father had returned from his case, drug ring behind bars, and had assisted on the hunt. Even so, they had found nothing. And so, although the blue Police Box and the bow-tied man remained in the back of their minds, their one unsolved case begging to be solved, they'd gone on with their lives.

* * *

At this very moment, the Doctor and his box were the last thing on Frank and Joe's minds, considering they were just about to be executed by the gang that had been working in and out of Bayport for several weeks, the gang they had been investigating nearly that whole time. They'd gone undercover and had just gotten the information they needed to get the whole gang behind bars but had been caught spying on the leader, who had apparently done some digging and had found out who the brothers really were.

The escape was a spur-of-the-moment thing. As their executioner turned his gun – and attention – toward Frank, only one thought ran through Joe's mind.  _No, not Frank!_  Joe knew that he had to make one last, albeit desperate, attempt to save his big brother – and by default, himself, although Joe Hardy's health was the last thing on his mind at the moment. His athletic training came in handy as he sprung off the balls of his feet, his bound hands nimbly slipping under his feet so they were in front of him. He lashed out with both hands while simultaneously kicking back so that he took both guards by surprise. Without waiting to see if he'd knocked them off balance enough, he leaped to the side and rammed into Frank just as the gun went off.

_Bam!_

Joe cried out as the bullet hit his shoulder. If he hadn't jumped to save Frank, it probably would've hit his head and he would have been dead. As it was, he felt grateful to only have a wounded shoulder, but as Frank yelled his name and the gang members began to scramble for weapons and shout for reinforcements, he realized that he had probably just made things worse for themselves. There was still a chance, though – if Frank would just run while they were distracted, at least his brother would have a chance to get out of this. Joe knew that he wasn't going anywhere, as the white-hot pain of the bullet and blood spilling out of the wound told him quite insistently.

"Frank," Joe cracked out as his brother tried desperately to stem the flow of blood with his hands bound behind his back. "Run. Just… go."

"No way, Joe," Frank said matter-of-factly.

"But—"

There were yells and curses and the brothers knew that more gang members would be arriving soon and the ones that had been in charge of the execution were almost upon them. Hands were grabbing them, pulling them apart, and although Frank yelled out for his brother with a cracked voice, they were dragged away from each other, Joe shot and bleeding and Frank, his hands red with his brother's blood, thrashing to get to his little brother. It took two men to hold Frank back, and even that wasn't enough. He elbowed one of the men in the face, causing his grip to loosen and then did it again. This time, Frank heard the crack and smiled grimly, kicking up his heel and hitting the other guy where it  _really_  hurt. While the two were distracted by their pain, Frank jerked free, slipping the recently recovered gun from the executioner's holster as he did so.

He held it before him, eyes flashing dangerously. He didn't know how badly Joe was hurt, but judging by the amount of blood, it wasn't good. They needed to get him to the hospital, soon. He wasn't sure how he was going to get out of this, because even though he had the gun, it was still three against two… well, one and a half, since Joe looked like he was about to pass out. Frank aimed the gun at the executioner, hoping that there was a bit of honor among these thieves, and that they wouldn't just shrug and say, "Okay, fine, kill'em," and then attack. Thankfully, nobody moved, everyone eyeing the gun warily.

Emboldened by the results of his actions, Frank trained the gun on each man in turn, making sure never to take his eyes off any of them. "Alright," said Frank in a voice that sounded much stronger than he felt at the moment. "Let my brother go and I won't shoot."

No one spoke. Suddenly, a loud bang rent the silence and the man holding Joe slumped over. Frank blinked, pretty sure he hadn't pulled the trigger. He hadn't. The police had found them, Fenton must have figured out something was wrong and had tracked them down. Thank God…

Frank watched as if in a daze as dozens of officers flooded into the abandoned warehouse, taking the three gang members into custody and informing Frank that there were medics just outside and that the reinforcements had already been taken care of. Joe was taken away on a stretcher and Frank's head was swimming as he tried to follow his brother into the back of the ambulance, only to be pulled back by gentle hands and there were flashing lights and lots of talking and yellow tape, but Frank heard none of it. For a moment, all he could do was stare as he saw the bow-tie wearing man looking out from behind the warehouse, looking pleased but concerned.

Then he snapped back to reality and demanded to be taken to the hospital to be with Joe  _now_. Even though the Doctor was Frank and Joe's biggest unsolved mystery, even he wasn't enough to pull Frank away from his brother.

* * *

"For the millionth time, Frank, I'll be  _fine,_ " Joe said as he shifted in his hospital bed, wincing but looking much better than he had the day before. "The doctor said it missed anything vital and that it just bled a lot and I'll be back home in a couple of days. So relax."

"I know, I know," Frank said, sighing, unsure of how to express what he was feeling to Joe. "It's just… I'm so  _tired,_  Joe. I love what we do, I really do, but you were almost killed, Joe. We both were. And I don't want to lose you, you self-sacrificing idiot!" He ruffled Joe's hair affectionately.

"The feeling's mutual," Joe agreed, smiling tiredly. "But I know what you mean. It's crazy, bro, but sometimes it feels like we've been doing this for eighty years!"

"That's good!" came a familiar but still foreign voice that neither boy had heard for several months. "Really good. You really  _are_ as bright as they say, aren't you boys?" The doctor swaggered into the room, grinning. A young man and woman were with him and looked just about as confused as the Hardy brothers did.

"Wait… what do you mean?" Frank asked, wondering how these people had even gotten into the room, considering they weren't staff or family and the Doctor was currently wanted by the Bayport PD for impersonating a police officer.

"Isn't it obvious, fellas, you brilliant humans, you?" He waited expectantly for them to figure out whatever it was he was so excited about, but his audience just blinked. "Ah," he said. "Okay, maybe not  _quite_  as bright as they say." Before Frank had a chance to be offended, the Doctor was speaking again. "But you're still super clever; it's exciting to see humans using their brains like this, really! Amy, Rory, I want you to meet Frank and Joe Hardy, some of the greatest young detectives to ever grace the fictional and real world with their skills!"

"Fictional?" said Frank.

"Not quite as bright?" Joe deadpanned from his hospital bed.

"Doctor, what  _are_  you talking about?" the very pretty, red-haired girl asked in a Scottish accent. "They're not fictional, they're  _real_. We're talking to them, aren't they?"

"Yeah, Doc, judging by the pain in my shoulder, I'd say we're pretty real," Joe quipped, although Frank saw behind the tough-guy façade to know that Joe wasn't kidding about the pain.

"Oh, you're real, alright. But also  _not_ real. Well, as real as any of us are, anyway. But that's not what's important. Joe: you said that you felt like you'd been doing this for eighty years! Do you know  _why_  you feel like that?"

Joe shrugged, then hissed in pain. Frank glared at the Doctor, as if Joe's heightened pain was his fault, but the Doctor didn't take his eyes from Joe's. "Um… because we've solved more cases than we can count and feel like we've been doing this for ages…?"

"No, because you  _have actually_ been doing it for ages! You said you felt like it had been eighty years, well… you're right! You've been solving mysteries for eighty-sum years, and depending on the decision you make right here, right now, it could very well be… eighty years and counting!"


	4. 2012 (And Counting!)

Frank and Joe stared blankly at the Doctor, while the large-nosed man and red-haired girl (she was hot, Joe decided, and even Frank couldn't help but agree with what he knew his brother was thinking) looked on, confused but used to it, apparently. "I'm sorry," said Frank, "but what kind of Doctor did you say you were, again?"

"Never said," the Doctor answered. "Bit of this and that… I've got a degree in cheese making from the 2104 Moon University. Moon-iversity was what they called it. Ha. That was a weird year!"

The man and woman looked at each other, eyebrows raised in not quite disbelief, but exasperation. Frank and Joe, however, were both wondering if this Doctor was not really a doctor at all, but an escaped patient from a psychiatric ward. Then again, there were so many things that didn't add up if that were the case… The disappearing Police Box that looked bigger on the inside, the way the Doctor had been there, watching, when they'd escaped, looking pleased as if he'd helped them along. The fact that even though he talked like a madman, he seemed to know more than any of them and his eyes held more sorrow, intelligence, knowledge, giddiness, and thirst for adventure than they'd ever seen. There was definitely something more to the Doctor than met the eye, so instead of questioning him any further on his identity, they decided to let him do the talking and see if any logical explanation would surface.

Well, Frank decided this. Joe wasn't quite done with his interrogation yet. "Dude…" he said from the bed, his blonde eyebrow seeming dark against the paleness of his face. "What's up with the bowtie?"

The Doctor grinned. As he spoke, his two friends mouthed his response with him, rolling their eyes good-naturedly. "Bowties are cool."

"Sure," Joe agreed. "Why not?"

"See?" the Doctor said, smiling madly and nudging the girl in the side. "Told you so."

"Doctor, I probably sound like a broken record after all this time," the other man said, scratching his sandy-blonde hair, "but I'm totally lost. Who are these people… really? You've been running around acting all… spacey-wacey, but more so than usual. What's going on here?"

Nobody spoke, and all eyes trained on the Doctor. Frank and Joe shared a momentary glance before also focusing on the strange man standing near the hospital room's door, hands in pockets, bowtie slightly askew, smiling knowingly at the people in the room. "Alright, Rory, you're right," he said. "I  _think_  it's all coming together now." He turned to look at Frank and Joe, looking each in the eye but allowing his gaze to linger on Joe. "Sorry I took so long to help you fellas out, but if I'm right – and I almost always am – you were fine on your own. Sure, I used a little sonicing in the end, but all you needed to get out of that sticky situation was a couple of severed ropes, eh? Once Frank was free, it was home-free for you both!"

"Wait…  _you_  caused the ropes to come untied?" Frank asked, incredulous, thinking about how one minute he had been trying to keep pressure on Joe's wound with his hands tied tightly behind his back, and the next minute, the ropes had broken and he was fighting for control of the gun to save Joe. He hadn't even really thought about it until now; it was his concern for his brother that had caused him to have not noticed the exact moment he was mysteriously free. "How? You were nowhere near me!"

The Doctor reached into his tweed jacket and pulled out a silvery cylinder, clicking a button on the side and making it chirp and the tip light up green. "This is a sonic screwdriver," he announced, "and it can do all sorts of things, from quite a distance, too. Disable weapons, make lights go out; it can even make a really cool zappy noise, but it can also unlock locks…"

"And cut through ropes?" Joe guessed. "I still don't get why you'd want to make a  _screwdriver_ sonic of all things, but okay, fine. If that's really what happened, why didn't you do more with your handy-dandy tool? I mean, no offense, dude, but I got  _shot_. Why didn't you zap the bad guys and get us out of there sooner?"

"Oh, you  _humans!_  Sometimes you forget how ingenious you are on your own! I used the TARDIS to track you down in our current time stream and found you at the warehouse. I knew you were in trouble, but I also knew who you were. Are. Will be! I knew exactly what to do, because you, Frank Hardy, were a much, much more powerful force to reckon with than this old Doctor could have ever been!

"You see, I know all about you boys. I'm so thick; I can't believe I didn't see it sooner. I knew,  _I knew_ , that with just the tiniest bit of help, the littlest itty-bitty nudge, that you could save the day all on your own! Frank Hardy, you're a big brother, and a bloody good one at that! I knew you'd get your brother out alive if I'd just set you free… and you'd get yourself out, too, because if you died, who would look after Joe, eh? 'Course, he started the whole thing, didn't he, because he's just as good a little brother as you are a big brother! I knew that the great Hardy Boys could do it on their own!

"Humans, even at your greatest, you fail to see how much better you can be! You're writing your own stories, your way, and you don't need a silly old Doctor to get you out of trouble, not really! I just sort of… helped." He grinned madly.

Frank was furious. "That doesn't change the fact that he still got shot!" he fumed. "You were there, you could've prevented that! You said your silly screwdriver disarms weapons. Why didn't you use it to disarm the gun that shot Joe?"

"He's got a point," the man previously addressed as Rory commented.

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it?" the Doctor said, hazel eyes wide.

"Not really," Rory shrugged. "Amy, do you have any idea what he's talking about now?"

The red-head, Amy, raised her eyebrows. "When do I ever? So, Doctor, why didn't you stop the big, bad bullet? I've seen you zap homo-reptilia guns into useless pieces of junk like it's nothing. What gives?"

As she spoke, Joe caught Frank's eye and mouthed,  _Homo-reptilia?_

Frank just shrugged, totally out of his depth. For an explanation, this conversation was just going from weird to ridiculously weird. He decided to just keep his mouth shut and be clueless for a while longer in the hopes that something might actually be explained in the near future.

"Didn't you see the handle of the gun?" the Doctor asked. "It was polished wood!"

"Ah, got it," Amy said. "The sonic doesn't work on wood," she informed the boys.

"It's a  _screwdriver!_ " Joe protested incredulously. "Aren't screwdrivers for putting up shelves and stuff made out of wood?"

"Oi, don't dis the sonic!" the Doctor protested. "It  _did_  just save your life."

"No," Frank shook his head. "We saved each other's lives. Like we always do."

The Doctor hooted in excitement, flipping the sonic screwdriver in his hand and sliding it back into his jacket. "Finally! That was the whole  _point!_  Now, about that rift… I think it would be better if I just  _showed_ you. It's quite close, actually… and the largest bit is right in your own home. Care to see?"

"You're forgetting, Joe's been shot. He's in the hospital. He's not going anywhere for a couple of days," Frank said.

"Nonsense! He'll be just fine. Don't worry, I've already taken care of everything." He pulled out a wallet and flipped it open, revealing a small slip of paper. "Says right here that I'm a specialist at these kinds of injuries, and Joseph has been released into my care. 'Course, took me a while to get past those silly policemen outside the hospital, considering they think me some sort of police impersonator, which is hurtful, because it says I'm police, right on my box…" He shook his head. "But it's all cleared up now. My TARDIS is parked in a storage closet a few doors down and the med bay is all ready to give you a speedy recovery, Joe. And then, I'll show you the  _truth_ … and you'll be able to decide for yourselves  _what_  and  _who_ you want to be. This is your life, men, and I'm about to show you a whole other side of it. Come along, Pond, Hardys, and Rory! Geronimo!"

And for some strange reason, even though they didn't understand hardly a word that came out of the Doctor's mouth, Frank and Joe knew that they could trust him. Frank gingerly helped Joe out of bed, allowing his brother to lean on him as they followed the Doctor, Amy, and Rory out of the hospital room and down the hall a few feet, before arriving at a large closet, whose doors the Doctor threw open with a flourish. Inside, just like the day they'd first seen it on a street corner near their home, was that blue box. The Doctor smiled, snapped his gangly fingers, and the doors swung open – as well as Frank and Joe's mouths. It was incredible… impossible.

"It… it's really bigger on the inside," Frank stammered. "How's that possible?"

"Welcome to the TARDIS!" the Doctor said. "Now, come along, let's get you to the med bay and patch you up, yeah?"

As he and his companions began to lead the Hardys through the futuristic, gleaming control room and through several corridors to the medical room, Joe, despite being exhausted and in pain, couldn't help but lean over to Frank and mutter, "Yeah, bro, about what I said last time we saw this thing – I totally mean it. We've  _got_  to get us one of these!"

* * *

The TARDIS was mind-blowing. Despite Frank's anger at the Doctor for not doing more to help Joe earlier, he couldn't help but stare in awe at the interior of the police box. Because, well, it  _wasn't_ a police box. The inside was enormous, and the Doctor informed them proudly that this was just the console, a couple yards of corridor, and the med bay. Just  _wait_  until they saw the swimming pool, the library, and the swimming pool  _in_  the library. The squash courses! The atrium, the gymnasium, the wardrobe!

While the Doctor set about taking care of Joe in the med bay, he started to explain about the TARDIS, referring to the logic-defying machine as a "her" and blabbering on about all the  _cool_ stuff she could do. The TARDIS was a time-machine that traveled through space and time and the Doctor, apparently, was some sort of extra-terrestrial called a Time Lord. He was over 900 years old and had traveled all over the universe, even outside of it, and knew a little to a lot of just about everything in existence. Including, it seemed, Frank and Joe themselves, although he wasn't ready to divulge this particular information just yet.

Frank was wary about letting this madman dance around his little brother with a variety of otherworldish devices, one of which looked suspiciously like a toilet brush with a ray gun sticking out of it. Amy and Rory assured him that the Doctor knew what he was doing – he  _was_ called the Doctor, after all – but when that didn't do much to ease Frank's worry, Rory added that he was a nurse and would keep an eye on things to make sure Joe got the best treatment possible.

Frank had to hand it to the Doctor and his impossible machine and equipment. Within the hour, Joe's gunshot wound had been reduced to a small scratch, speedily healed by the alien equipment in the TARDIS's medical bay.

"See?" the Doctor beamed, waving his Cybertronic Muscle-Rebuilder (A.K.A. Toilet Brush of Mass Destruction) in the air. "Healing wounds like this is easy! You know, when you've got medical equipment straight out of the year 95 thousand-dash-apple-dash-23304!" He grinned. "Great, great year… Anyway! How do you feel, Joe?"

Joe flexed his arm tentatively, moved around, massaged his shoulder, and grinned, blue eyes dancing in wonder. "It's fine," he said, gaping at the Doctor and his friends. "It's like I wasn't shot at all! How did you…?"

"He's a time-traveling alien with a futuristic doctor's kit," Frank deadpanned, still reeling but finding no alternative but trusting what the Doctor had told him, considering that they were standing in an enormous sick room in a tiny police box in a hospital closet and after today, he'd probably believe just about anything.

Joe looked at him in surprise. "I thought you were skeptical," he grinned.

"I am. Or was. But as Sherlock Holmes once said, after you've eliminated the possible, then it's got to be the impossible. And  _this_ ," he gestured around him, "is most definitely  _impossible_."

The Doctor smiled. "Ah, there's another great fictional-but-not-really character! Great bloke. Moody, though.  _Hell_  of a right hook!"

Frank raised an eyebrow. "Okay, so maybe I'm still a bit skeptical," he admitted.

Joe chuckled, and soon the Doctor, Amy, and Rory had joined in, giggling at Frank's statement or the absurdity of this whole situation, or simply because they'd all gone mad, Frank didn't know, but as he began to laugh as well, he felt an odd assurance that everything was going to be okay, even if the very order of the universe had been turned on its head in one crazy afternoon.

* * *

The Doctor had soon ushered everyone back to the control room, and Frank and Joe still in a daze from all they'd seen. And, according to their time-traveling pilot, there was much more to come. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory worked together to pull a few levers, hit a few buttons, and suddenly the giant glass tube in the center of the console came to life, glowing and whirring. There was a jolt, and everyone was knocked over as an invisible force hit the TARDIS. When the doors opened once again, Frank and Joe were once more flabbergasted.

"We've moved," Joe crowed, eyes wide like those of a child in a candy store. "We're in—"

"—our basement," Frank finished for his brother, eyebrows raised so that they blended with his dark hair. "Why…?"

"Because," said the Doctor, "this is where everything is centered. This is why you are over eighty years old but still teenagers!"

"Please, explain, Doctor," Rory said, rubbing his temples. "Because this is making less sense by the second."

"Okay," the Doctor agreed, grinning wildly at the group of confused people around him. "Behold – the Hardy basement!  _But_  it's not just a basement, is it?" He didn't allow time for anyone to answer before he plowed on, eager to finally reveal the knowledge that he'd been barely containing all day. "No, it's a basement that is absolutely  _coated_  with residual,  _active_  time energy! And not just any time energy!" He looked at Amy. "Amy Pond, do you remember our second adventure together?"

"Starship UK?" Amy confirmed. "How could I forget it? It's where we met the star whale."

" _Aaaand_  where we met Liz 10," the Doctor said. "Do you remember much about the queen?"

"Well," said Amy, scrunching up her nose as she thought, "she was really hundreds of years old. They'd slowed her body clock using some sort of time energy…"

"…That was developed from residue from a temporal explosion in the year 2100," the Doctor added excitedly. "You see, sometimes the time vortex has disturbances, causing a temporal flux. Sometimes it's nothing, just a random ripple in the time stream, or the skin of the world, which is where you'd get—"

"Ghosts," Frank nodded. The Doctor beamed proudly and Amy and Rory looked at him, impressed that he was able to figure out what the Doctor was thinking. Frank shrugged, grinning humbly. "Well, in all of our cases concerning ghosts, I've managed to research just about every theory and method for ghosts existing. The temporal flux was always a favorite."

"He's a bit of a nerd," Joe offered to Amy, winking conspiratorially, but looked at his older brother with pride all the same. He stopped attempting to flirt with the Scottish woman after Rory cleared his throat, irritated.

"Okay, Doctor," said Amy, "I understand that much. But this is more than just a little tear in time, right?"

"Bingo! No, what's happened here is that there was a massive explosion in the time vortex, and the debris was scattered. Some of the larger bits of residual energy hit the planet and began to thrive. They usually would've died out by now,  _but_  in a place where there's a natural time rift, like Cardiff, or, in this case, a small town in Massachusetts, that energy begins to grow and feed upon the rift and feed  _into_  the timelines of all those within a… erm… well, ten-to-sixty mile radius. So basically, to put in in simpler terms, this residual time energy is feeding off the rift and slowing the body clocks of nearly everyone in Bayport."

"But I still don't—" Joe began, but the Doctor waved him aside and continued talking.

"I'd say, judging by the time the books came out, that this explosion happened in the early nineteen hundreds. Possibly late twenties or early thirties. And it's stretched out your timelines, causing you to age  _maybe_  a day every year, if that much. You don't notice, though, because while your time streams are being slowed by the time energy, the rift itself is feeding upon the extended timelines and causing time to blur together. So, while it may seem like you've only been solving mysteries for about a year, it's actually been about eighty years in the rest of the world's time."

"I think we'd know if we'd lived in the nineteen-thirties," Joe commented dubiously.

"Would you?" the Doctor challenged. "Tell me, Joe, do you remember the old motorcycle you used to have?"

"Yeah, it was a classic!" Joe grinned.

"And your and Frank's old car?"

"Of course!"

"So when exactly did the black van come into play?"

"When we helped the Network—"

"No, no, no. You're not getting it. When did the black van become an option? When did technology improve that much? When did you get your first computers? How long ago was it?"

"I… I don't know," Frank admitted, suddenly concerned that the more he thought about these things, the less he could remember. "But…"

"That's because time, while seeming to be passing at a normal rate, has been blurring and going on for  _much_ longer than your human minds can remember!"

"Hey!"

"Joe, don't worry," Rory said, sighing. "He insults other species all the time. I don't even know if he notices it anymore."

"The point is, Rory, that everyone in Bayport has had a lengthened time stream, and they don't even know it! Now, some people may have aged faster than others, but that's because once someone is out of the general area of the rift, their timelines will begin to speed up marginally, and the farther you are away from the rift, the faster your time stream will speed up. You see, boys, every time you go overseas, like to Scotland or England or Africa, your time clocks begin to tick again. Your father has spent much time out of Bayport and thus has aged a bit quicker than your mum."

Frank and Joe looked at each other in astonishment. While their dad was a handsome, relatively young looking man, he had started to show some age lines and a sprinkling of gray hair, while their mother seemed to have stayed basically the same. And since Aunt Gertrude had come to live with them, she hadn't seemed to age nearly as much as her brother… As crazy as it was, the boys' detective minds were rolling and they began to see the puzzle pieces connecting together.

"Okay," Frank said slowly. "Is there any way we can  _see_  this time energy?"

"Ah, you detectives, you've always got to have proof of everything, eh?"

"That's… kind of what detectives do," Joe pointed out, a half-smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. "Look for… proof."

"Very well." The Doctor reached into his tweed jacket and pulled out five paper pairs of 3D glasses – the kind with one blue lens and one red one.

"Haven't seen these in ages!" Joe grinned, snatching his pair. "They only use those ones that look like sunglasses now.

"Now, put them on. You should be able to see the time energy…" Everyone did as they were told and the boys gasped to see the tiny, glowing particles that absolutely  _drenched_  their basement, their skin, their clothes. "You've never traveled in time," the Doctor noted, "and yet you are coated in time energy. It's what's slowed your body clocks, made you live as long as you have. And now you have a choice." He took his glasses off, and the boys, Amy, and Rory followed suit.

The Doctor looked the boys in the eyes, a serious expression on his face. "I can get rid of the residual energy. Your time streams will return to normal. You'll grow up at a normal rate. Or. I can leave. Only come back if I have to, if the rift and energy creates a dangerous combination, which I don't see as a real possibility. You can keep on living, being young and solving mysteries for years and years to come. Your friends and family, as long as they stay in Bayport, connected with you and the energy emanating from your house, will be the same. The choice is yours."

* * *

Amy watched with wide eyes as Frank and Joe looked at each other, trying to decide what the best choice would be. The red-head found herself wondering what she would do were she in their position. Sure, it would be easy just to say, "Sure, I'll virtually become immortal," but it was more complicated than that, wasn't it?

Frank and Joe lived a dangerous life, that much was clear. Their confrontation with the gang, the near-execution and Joe getting shot had shaken her up more than she had let on. She was used to being in dangerous situations, but there was something different about fighting aliens with ray guns and seeing humans with bullets and pistols finding pleasure in killing a couple of good-hearted teens. It made her ill. The Doctor always talked about how wonderful humans were, but what about people like that? How could the Doctor admire humans when gangs and murderers and people like Hitler existed? She guessed there were bad eggs in every species, but still…

It had spooked her.

If she were the Hardy boys, would she choose to live longer and face more dangers or get on with her life, being able to grow up and experience more of life sooner? Of course, if time moved in such a way that she wouldn't notice the length of time, it might not even make a difference. She could tell, though, at certain times, when Frank would glance at his brother or vice versa, that there was something in their eyes, something old and tired saying that even though they didn't remember it all, the weight of nearly a century of life and danger rested in their minds.

She really didn't know what she'd do. Or did she? She glanced at her fiancé, with his soft eyes, cute haircut, and big nose. A surge of love and longing rose within her and she realized that if she could spend a hundred years with Rory rather than one, she would take the most time.

Frank and Joe must've come to the same kind of decision, because they looked at each other, then around at their home where their family lived, probably thinking also about Bayport and all the people they loved that lived around them.

"You can leave it," Frank decided, and Joe nodded in agreement. "It may be hard sometimes, but if I can extend the amount of time I have with my friends, my family, and my annoying little brother, I'd do it gladly!"

"Plus, that means we'll get to keep on solving mysteries!" Joe crowed.

"And I'll have to keep bailing you out of trouble," Frank realized. "But that's okay. I'd never get tired of protecting you, bro."

"Me either," Joe agreed.

The Doctor was nearly glowing with excitement. "Bravo, boys! I had a feeling that's what you'd choose."

Amy smiled warmly at her fiancé and new friends. "I think you made a good decision."

"Me, too," Joe said. "But Doctor, there's still one thing I'm confused about. Earlier, you mentioned some guy named Stratemeyer. And then you said something about books. Care to explain?"

* * *

The Doctor shifted from one foot to the other. "Well, you see, it's a bit of a paradox, and we Time Lords don't do paradoxes, but I guess… you should know… A few people who have spent a lot of time near the rift, or visited a lot, from the outside, have retained the gift of sort of… seeing through it. A man named Edward Stratemeyer was one of them. When he visited Bayport, around the time of the explosion, I'd wager, he was stuck with a bit of residual energy, too, and that made him more privy to what was going on here. He thought that you boys were mighty impressive, so he started writing books about you, although he was simply influenced by what he saw here. Once he moved outside of the rift, a lot of the information left him, like it does most visitors as the energy is purged from them. But a bit remained, enough for him to have the idea of two teenage detectives. He started writing fiction novels.

"They caught on fairly quickly, but as most outsiders either forget most of what they've seen about the energy or simply, unintentionally avoid it because it's so complex, too complex for even their subconscious, since they aren't used to it. It's a very dodgy process. Anyway, over the years, you could say that the  _Hardy Boys_  books have become a cult classic. Some of the books out there are based on truth, some spawn from the ghostwriter's imaginations. But the point is, you've become legendary, and you didn't even know about it, which is a good thing, because, as I said earlier – paradox! You've become a world of your own, alive in so many people's minds, yet existing here in Bayport quietly the whole time. Sure, you've helped people out from all over, but most don't make the connection. Frank and Joe Hardy the fictional characters have almost become separate entities, due to the wide range of books, those  _horrid_  Undercover Brother novels, and of course, the fan-fictions."

"Fan…fictions?"

"Oh, yes, well… you've got quite a following. Or… literature Frank and Joe do. I'm not sure if I'd try to look any up though." He cleared his throat, almost nervously.

"Why's that?" Frank asked curiously.

"Paradox, right?" Amy supplied.

"Nah, that'd probably be okay. But… some of these authors can be a bit… overzealous with their treatment of their favorite characters. They can tend to be a bit brutal, so I've heard. I'd… steer clear if I didn't want to have nightmares, boys. Some of the things that happen to fan-fiction Frank and Joe are a bit… gruesome. Terrifying. But brilliant, I'm sure! I  _do_  love a good fan-fiction now and again!" He scratched his chin. "I wonder if there are any fan-fictions about  _me!_ "

Rory rolled his eyes. "That's just silly, Doctor."

The Doctor shook his head. "You're right, Rory; besides, even if there were I wouldn't read them. I'm too much of a character to be reduced to mere words on a computer screen!"

"You can say that again," Amy muttered.

Frank started to chuckle and soon Joe joined in, followed by Amy, then Rory, and the Doctor.

Sure, all logic had been defied that day. The boys had not only learned that they'd been solving mysteries for eighty years, but that they would be able to keep doing so for countless more years to come. Their time together with their friends and family was just beginning, and if anything were to go wrong with the rift or the time energy, well, they knew just the man to patch things up, even if he _was_  a bit mad.

And, best of all, no matter what, they'd always have each other. They were glad of their choice. It'd been eighty years of ups and downs and they were happy to make it…

(You guessed it!) … Eighty years and counting!

**THE END**


End file.
